Whatever it Takes: A Sequel to By Any Means Necessary
by Cheri Goodman - Heather Wyatt
Summary: When a ghost from their past sets his sights on Brennan, it's up to Booth to stop him...again. But this time, he has even more on the line. Picks up 10 months after my previous story, By Any Means Necessary.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: This is a strong T for now. Will eventually go M and be moved at that time.**

 **This picks up 10 months after my previous story,** **By Any Means Necessary** **(found over in the M section), leaves off. I don't suppose you'd necessarily** ** _have_** **to read it first, but you'd probably be pretty lost if you didn't. It is a sequel, but currently not intended to be anywhere near the length of BAMN. Just gathering up a couple loose threads I always intentionally left untied, with every intention of coming back later to tie them off so long as there's enough interest in the project. So let me know if you are interested! And if you can guess exactly what thread is coming back to haunt us...**

 **By Any Means Necessary: The Sequel**

Booth had only been kidding ten months ago, that night before they first made love, when he'd joked outside her apartment that he was addicted to her.

He was pretty sure she had been at least partially kidding too the next morning, when she'd brought him coffee and implied that she was addicted to him as well.

But starting almost immediately from their first time in that cabin, all evidence pointed to the fact that they were both _definitely a_ ddicted…in a can't keep their hands off each other, sleep is really just optional anyway, and how the hell did they manage to make it through the work day kind of way.

Making up for lost time? Maybe. But ten months later, Booth still couldn't think about that weekend in the cabin without getting a hard-on. About how they'd finally both awakened late that evening, and quickly left in search of a restaurant - because although the cabin had everything else, it was definitely lacking anything edible (well, other than her). About how they'd barely made it back inside the door after a hasty dinner before clothes were disappearing again. About how they'd tumbled back into the bed, breathless and laughing and tripping over one another in their haste to get each other naked. And that time she'd been the one on top the entire time. And he'd finally let her get her hands on him, too, and it'd been _more_ than worth the wait.

He'd crossed off quite a few locations on his list of places he wanted to be intimate with Bones that weekend. His money and planning hadn't been wasted. They'd made exceptional use of the hot tub; they had finally got around to acting out that fantasy of hers involving the couch. And then there was that amazing rug in front of the fireplace, the one that had him quickly adding "must have a fireplace" to his mental list of necessary amenities if he ever talked her into getting their own house together instead of splitting time between their respective apartments.

Life had become pretty damn blissful. He couldn't speak for her, but he wasn't just satisfied. He was completely fulfilled in every aspect of their lives together (well, other than that not-being-married-to-her-yet thing, but he definitely had a go-slow plan for brainwashing her into that one). And that overall fulfillment he felt was even more prominent in their sex life.

And judging by the way he'd become an expert on how to have her screaming his name just like he liked, every single time, he'd have imagined she felt the same.

So he really didn't see it coming when she very calmly turned his whole perspective upside down on its head while he was whistling his way through making breakfast one Monday morning ten months later. He was far too occupied with frequently sneaking peeks at her perched on the counter reading some squinty magazine while making him crazy in nothing more than the dress shirt she had so effectively stripped off him the night before.

"Booth?"

"Mm-hmm?" He was already grinning. It wouldn't be the first time she'd interrupted his breakfast-making in favor of fulfilling other appetites. He knew full well just how easy it was to insert his body right between her thighs with her sitting that way, get her into his arms with her legs wrapped around him, and carry her to his bed where he could slowly and sweetly make love to her. Breakfast was nearly as optional as sleep these days.

"It's been almost a year since Albania."

His grin slowly faded. He couldn't remember the last time either of them had mentioned it, though it was never far from his mind. His attention definitely wasn't on breakfast anymore. "Yeah," he replied carefully, not entirely sure where this was going. He cleared his throat. "Yeah, Bones, I guess so."

She was still studying her magazine, though he knew her well enough to see she probably hadn't actually been reading a word since at least a few moments before she called his name. Her wheels of thought had already started turning…likely aiming to run him over.

"Dr. Saroyan stopped proofreading all of my reports two months ago. Dr. Sweets has not brought up the subject in quite some time, and my field privileges are no longer subject to his supervision."

He watched her carefully, trying to catch her gaze, still a little lost. "That's all good news….right?"

He may as well not have spoken. She just kept staring at her magazine, even turned a page, her eyes flicking toward him once to make sure he was buying her casual reading act. He'd have rolled his eyes under normal circumstances….her acting skills hadn't improved much.

"Also, Gordon-Gordon said on Friday that it's not necessary for me to meet with him any longer. Although, he would still like to share a plate of woefully unhealthy potatoes occasionally."

Booth relaxed just a little bit, enough to pour up his omelet into the frying pan, thinking they'd finally reached the point of all this: she must be worried he would object to her no longer meeting with Dr. Wyatt. The issue of her entering therapy had certainly been a point of sharp contention between them at the time, leading to him tricking her into lunch with the kindly older psychiatrist to stack the deck in his favor so he could get her some help.

So he was pretty sure he knew what this was about. But it had never been characteristic for Bones - and even less so since they'd started sleeping together - to take the around-the-bush approach with him unless she was going to bridge some topic she felt he'd need coaxing into. And she _had_ to know he trusted Dr. Wyatt's judgment implicitly, or he'd have never entrusted her to him in the first place. It made him mildly suspicious that maybe something more was going on, so he decided to tread carefully.

"That's great, Bones! I mean, I guess it is. Aren't you…okay with that?"

She abandoned her magazine, plunking it resolutely down beside her and pinning him eye to eye, giving up any pretense of casualness.

"Of course. I was simply questioning when _you_ are going to accept that I've fully recovered."

That froze him into place pretty effectively, his mouth hanging slightly open for a moment. "I…what are you talking about, Bones?" She just continued to stare him down, so he felt compelled to fill the silence. "I mean, did I…do something?" His own wheels started turning, trying to figure out if there was an incident in recent memory where he'd hovered a little too much, let his protectiveness of her get just a little out of hand. He couldn't think of anything; work had been pretty normal, not even one situation where she'd been in danger. And after work she was almost always with him, driving him crazy in every sense of the word, so…

She squared her shoulders, and he knew she was about to spell it out for him. It still figuratively knocked him over when she did.

"I'm asking you why you're still so hesitant about touching me."

That one took him a few seconds to process. One hand came up to rub at his forehead. "Um, Bones…"

"Yes?"

His mouth opened and closed a few times, as he tried to figure out how to state the blatantly obvious. A flabbergasted breath of a laugh whooshed out of his mouth, followed by a voice that sounded entirely too defensive even to his own ears. "We've made love almost every day for 10 months…usually more than once."

"Yes, we have." The huge, cat-that-ate-the-canary grin that crept across her face when she agreed took a little of the sting out of things, reassuring him just the tiniest bit. "But I'm referring to the fact that….oh, that's starting to burn, Booth."

" _What?"_ He stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment, before the smell of burning food hit his nostrils and sent his eyes to his now inedible omelet. "Oh! _Dammit."_

It took him a moment to cut the heat off and quickly wipe up the spatters on the stove after he fumbled the hot pan. All of which was quite honestly the farthest thing from his mind at the moment as he unceremoniously tossed the ruined food, pan and all, onto a cold burner before returning his full attention to his partner.

"Bones, I don't understand. Are you trying to tell me you're not…" He gestured helplessly in front of him, loathe to even say it. "…satisfied?" He felt a little like the rug had been swept out from under him. He'd truly thought everything was fine. Perfect, in fact.

The look on his face (the one that Angela usually referred to as 'kicked-puppy': a descriptive analogy Brennan could most certainly agree with, being all-too-aware of the look's effectiveness) had her hopping down off the counter to move toward him and wrap her arms around his waist, looking up at his worried eyes.

"You know that I'm not dissatisfied, Booth," she told him before lying her head against his chest so she wouldn't have to see it if he continued making that face. "I'm _quite_ satisfied, in fact." Her tone left little doubt that she was telling the truth, and she felt his arms come up to loosely embrace her in return, a bit more slowly than usual. "I simply want you to know that there's no longer any reason for you to be overly cautious with me. I've not suffered from a flashback in months."

His hands moved to her shoulders and pulled her far enough away from him to look at her, his eyes serious. "I'm not sure I understand what's going on here, Bones, but I really need to. Tell me exactly what you're asking of me...please."

She met his eyes, her hand coming up to touch his cheek. "On the night I returned home from Philadelphia, you said the topic was closed indefinitely, and I agreed. But time has passed, and I'd like to reopen it."

He visibly winced as he remembered that night, instantly knowing what she meant. It'd been early in their relationship, when every touch still seemed like a minefield thanks to what had happened to them in Albania. She had taken a work trip to Philadelphia, leaving just one night after she sent his mind reeling by telling him in her bed that he wouldn't always have to be so overly gentle with her. He'd spent her entire trip trying not to obsess over the idea and failing miserably. Then she'd returned home from Philadelphia a day early, slipped into his bed in lingerie, and he'd gone at her like a madman thanks to his own ill-advised fantasies and his medication-induced belief that she was just a dream. It was what had happened next, with her panicking and just barely stopping him before he could make an already delicate situation a million times worse, that had convinced him the idea of being less than gentle with her was something he didn't want to think about again.

Ever.

Before he could even reply to her current request, not that he had a freaking clue what he was going to say anyway, her cell phone chose that exact moment to start ringing and snap him out of his reminiscing. Feeling like he was moving underwater, he let her go when she pulled away from him to retrieve it. He leaned one hand against the counter as he stood staring down at the cold surface, still reeling and not really listening to her end of the conversation.

When she hung up her phone, she stood staring at it for a moment. "That's odd," she remarked, more to the phone than to him, though that comment popped his eyes up in her direction immediately. Just the mere mention of their not-so-long-past ordeal had him on the alert to anything out of the ordinary.

"What's odd?"

She barely spared him a glance, still watching her phone as though she was waiting for something. "Hm? Oh. Nothing. I'm certain there's a logical explanation. We will have to continue this later. A body's been found in the park, although I'm…uncertain _which_ park. I'm supposed to receive a text with the coordinates and details of the….ah! There it is." She was halfway to the bedroom to start getting ready when she turned back around with a questioning look on her face. "Why isn't your phone ringing, Booth?"

"Huh?" One mystery explained, he'd already gone back to brooding about the much more mystifying idea that he apparently wasn't doing it for Bones in the bedroom. But he did manage to snap out of it enough to realize that she'd asked a pretty damn good question. Why _was_ she getting the call if he wasn't? He picked his phone up off the counter, noting that he had no missed calls. "I'm not sure…"

His phone beeped with an incoming text almost immediately, and he waved it at her reassuringly after scanning the screen just long enough to see that he was indeed being called to a crime scene in the park. She just shook her head at him and smiled before disappearing to get dressed.

… ooo … ooo …

They really had no more time to discuss anything. He'd desperately needed a shower, and she'd had her typical overwhelming obsession with getting to the crime scene as quickly as possible before some incompetent could compromise her evidence. Since he had no desire to bail her out for assault, and really wouldn't wish her tainted-evidence-wrath on his worst enemy much less some poor innocent crime scene tech, he decided not to hold her up.

They crossed paths at the bedroom door. She was already sailing out of it fully dressed, just as he had finished quickly cleaning up his mess in the kitchen and was on his way through to the bathroom for a shower.

"Meet you there?" he asked, his hand reaching out to catch her at the waist and stop her.

She stretched up and gave him a quick kiss, all too quick for his liking, but again: evidence. If there was one thing Bones liked more than either him _or_ sex, it was uncompromised evidence.

"Yes, that will be fine. I'll see you at the park."

He hadn't expected her to say anything else, so it surprised him when she called back to him just a few steps away.

"Booth?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you please think about my request?"

She didn't wait for an answer, which was probably a good thing. It would have been nearly impossible to convey without a heavy dose of sarcasm just how little chance there was that he'd be thinking about anything else. And sarcasm, he well knew, was just lost on her anyway.

"Gee, Bones, do you think?" he finally grumbled to himself anyway, but not until after he heard the door shut.

… ooo … ooo …

He slammed every drawer in the bedroom with much greater force than necessary as he rifled through them to find the clothes he'd need. Slammed at least one of them a second time for good measure.

The briskly angry way he scrubbed himself clean in the shower probably didn't do great things for his skin, but he was in full-fledged pout mode and didn't care about much other than the perceived attack on his sexual prowess.

Geez, what had been the first thing out of her mouth after the first time he made love to her? Something about him being right, that slow and gentle had been immensely satisfying, and how they had broken the laws of physics?

It wasn't like it should come as a surprise to her how he felt on the topic. She was the one who'd apparently memorized every word of his speech in the diner about it, a long time before either of them had decided to admit to each other that they'd both been thinking about _them_ when he said it.

And he _had_ been gentle with her. Unfailingly. From their very first time, and every time since.

He'd been careful, too, about making sure she was comfortable at every step. Not that there had been a lack of passion. There certainly hadn't. It's just that when he was inside her, he knew what a gift he was getting, and he wanted to treat that gift right. Meaning that, ever since they'd been home from the cabin, he made sure things ended up in one of their nice soft beds every time, no matter where either of them started things, with him using every ounce of restraint he had to keep his hands gentle and his thrusts in check - all of which was pretty damn impressive, as far as he was concerned, considering some of Bones' better efforts to break that steely control. And he had not even one time gone at her quite the way he did that night she came back from Philly. He'd handled her like fragile china.

Okay, so maybe in retrospect he _had_ been holding back. A _lot_ , and probably to the point of going overboard. And just maybe, deep down, he knew that. He'd just also been so thorough about not stopping until she was utterly boneless and sated in his arms that he just hadn't expected her to notice, much less call him out on it; although he probably should've, considering how much she'd always liked to talk about "passionate, uninhibited relations" even back when they were still just partners.

But dammit, after being forced to hold her down underneath him in that goddamn room in Albania, to _restrain_ her while she fought him thinking the worst was about to happen to her at his hands, and after everything that had happened afterward with her fear and flashbacks about him, he wasn't taking any chances. She'd not had a single fear reaction to him since they started making love, and he wasn't about to risk toppling that delicate balance by doing anything he didn't already _know_ was safe. That was just the way it had to be.

Or at least it was the way he'd _thought_ it had to be. Right up until 10 minutes ago when he found out that the woman he'd thought he was keeping fully sated and blissfully happy was instead dissatisfied with him.

 _Shit._

Sure, she'd tried to assure him that she wasn't. Had sounded for all the world like she meant it, too. But he was a man, and a fairly well experienced one at that. He knew damn well what it meant when a woman started bringing stuff like this up.

Add to that the fact that Bones had started out with a prejudice against monogamy as a satisfying lifestyle to start with, and that brought him to the _real_ reason he was slamming drawers and sulking:

What if Bones was starting to get it in her head that this thing wasn't working? He'd started the morning musing about how soon would be a good time to pop the question. But what if, God forbid, she was nowhere close to the same page? What if she was wondering if her needs might best be satisfied somewhere else? The more he thought about it, he could practically hear her spouting stuff about brain chemistry and cycles of attraction. What if 10 months, a year, two years, whatever…was all he got?

He wanted 50 years. At least.

… ooo … ooo …

Brennan alternately squinted into the sunlight and then down at the coordinates on her phone as she made her way through the far outskirts of the woods surrounding the very expansive Northwell Park, far away from any easily navigated trails, looking for the crime scene. For at least the fifth time, she stopped to hitch the strap on the heavy bag of equipment to a more comfortable position over her shoulder. She'd already been walking for quite some time from the middle-of-nowhere location she'd been forced to park her car, and it was unseasonably warm outside.

Despite the fact that she was relatively certain Booth was needlessly worrying and quite possibly pouting, and therefore not the most pleasant company after the topic she'd finally broached, she was beginning to wish for once that she'd waited for him to complete both his typical brief shower _and_ his inordinately long hairstyling regimen so they could have ridden together.

But that thought was soon forgotten when she pushed through a particularly thick canopy of brush and entered a small clearing cordoned off with crime scene tape, revealing a body in its midst. She stopped and blinked in confusion.

Where was everybody?

She was unfamiliar with the FBI official who'd called to request her team's assistance at the crime scene as a special FBI project. But as the coordinates he'd texted her immediately thereafter were clearly correct - she could see the body right in front of her, after all, and clearly _someone_ had been here to mark the crime scene - she had no doubts regarding his veracity.

What was unusual was that there was no one else in sight. No one from the Jeffersonian, no FBI agents, no local or park police, no annoying civilian bystanders.

Nobody.

"Hello?" she called out, waiting a few moments for a reply. "Hello? Is anyone here?"

She quickly opened her phone's call history, squinting against the sunlight to read her screen, intent upon speaking with the FBI official who had initially called her. A flash of irritation went through her as she realized she'd paid little attention to his name. She'd been too focused on why it wasn't Cam calling her. She couldn't even recall his title.

 _Booth_ would have remembered name and title, and possibly even have known names of the man's family members. The thought made her scowl.

It appeared to be a moot point anyway, as her call wasn't going through. Squinting once again at the display, she could just make out the "NO SERVICE" message. Which meant she couldn't call Booth either, to find out who had assigned them the case. She frowned again at the phone, shielding it with her free hand to ensure she had read that no-service message correctly. Duty had called her into this park in the past, though perhaps not nearly so far off the beaten path as she was now. The cell reception was normally excellent despite the rugged surroundings.

Looking around, she briefly considered leaving her equipment and making her way back to her car to see if her phone would have better reception there. But she could hardly leave the body unattended. In fact, she intended to have a strong rebuke for whomever was responsible for leaving the body unguarded to start with. Anyone could have strolled into the middle of her crime scene and contaminated evidence, although even she had to admit that it was unlikely anyone other than the murderer would have happened across such an out-of-the-way place.

Indecision filled her, along with a tiny nagging edge of worry at that very discomforting thought. But she could see from the edge of the clearing that the body was fully skeletonized, just as she preferred. And she knew that Booth would not be far behind her, once he was satisfied with his hair, at which time they could solve the mystery of the other missing personnel who should be in attendance.

So she opted instead to go ahead and begin her examination.

She opened her bag, donned her gloves and removed the equipment she needed. But she had knelt alongside the skeleton for mere seconds before her mouth fell softly open, her eyes widening.

"Oh my God."

TO BE CONTINUED...

 **Technical Note: For anyone who knows the area, the D.C.-area parks that will be mentioned in this story are fictitious. I researched actual parks nearby, but have never been there and didn't want to take the risk of getting something wrong and pulling the reader out of the story so I just created my own.**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Booth was still pouting when he stalked into the midst of the overly crowded crime scene he'd been summoned to in the middle of a playground in South Amville Park. He wasn't particularly looking forward to working with his partner, for a change. Unbeknownst to him, his partner was in a completely different park, Northwell, at least a 45-minute drive away.

But there was one thing he _did_ know for sure: This particular murder scene wasn't going to do much to improve his mood.

The utterly gruesome body, which some sick sonofabitch he simply couldn't _wait_ to arrest had positioned on the bottom of the children's slide, was surrounded by several familiar faces from the Jeffersonian hard at work.

But apparently the murderer hadn't been finished auditioning for the Sick-Sadistic-Bastard-of-the-Year award simply by using a children's playground as his dump site…no, he'd also strewn internal organs, fingers and toes from one end of the park to the other, and some of the surrounding areas as well. Booth learned that happy fact when he stopped on his way into the park to ask a tech about the overwhelming number of FBI agents, Jeffersonian personnel, and crime scene technicians wandering around and bending over in small groups, studying the ground and placing evidence markers all over the park and beyond, as far as his eye could see.

As he got closer to the body, Booth took in the scene. Camille Saroyan was bent over the body at the slide, doing whatever it was she did with such macabre messes. Angela Montenegro had a disgusted look on her face as she snapped picture after picture, and Jack Hodgins had an utterly inappropriate look of pure entrancement on his face as he scooped up whatever the hell kind of goop he was scooping up. And Daisy Wick was…oh great, Daisy. It didn't really even matter what she was doing; she was _Daisy._

Booth stifled a groan. He shouldn't be too surprised that both Bones _and_ an intern had been called in. Judging by the sheer number of people milling around, it looked like every member of law enforcement in the D.C. area had been called in on this one, plus a few more.

Booth strode straight up to his core group, his eyes still scanning the entire area for Bones, not that there was much chance of finding her. There were missing fingers and toes scattered in a wide radius extending far outside his field of vision, according to the tech he'd pumped for information, which meant missing bones. So he was fairly sure he knew exactly what _his_ missing Bones was off looking for, and that she wouldn't trust anybody else to do it. The body was far too fleshy at the present for her to hold much interest anyway. If only he had that luxury. His stomach hadn't felt so great since Bones dropped her little bombshell on him, and this... _this_ wasn't helping.

The odor tripled its assault on his nose almost immediately as he got too close. The smell of death was bad enough. Whatever this was? It was way worse.

"Okay, what… _what_ is that?" He was already pulling out his notepad, which quickly became a makeshift fan as he tried to push the godawful stench farther away from him. "God, you know, this day just keeps getting better."

Cam looked up briefly, sparing him a tiny grimace laced with amusement...he knew the smell was bad if it was even getting to her. "Good morning to you, too. What has you in such a great mood?"

"Good morning, Agent Booth!" assaulted his ears before he could even growl a mind-your-business response back to Cam. He wasn't sure which was brighter and more annoying…Daisy's voice, or her overly cheerful smile while she was wrist deep in gore. He muttered something unintelligible in response, hoping maybe the old adage 'if you ignore it, it will go away and shut the hell up' would hold true.

"Yeah, so… what have we got here?" he finally asked, fervently hoping there would be a swift answer - the kind where he could just say something like 'wrap it all up, send it to the Jeffersonian, and call me when you know something.'

"The absolute bottom of the depravity barrel," Angela chimed in by way of answer, her pretty face still twisted in disgust as she continued to snap pictures. "Ugh. Jack and I are moving to another _planet_."

Hodgins popped up with a grin, sticking a clear evidence container full of something slimy right in Booth's face. "Can't do that, Ange. You'd never find these babies on Mars. For that matter, never find them around here either. Aren't these _fantastic_?"

Booth pushed Hodgins' arm slightly away from his face. He knew better than to look in the box too closely. "Yeah, that's great, Hodgins. And what are they?"

" _Gyralina Nopscai_ ," Hodgins informed him with an even bigger grin. "They're dead, of course, but…this is awesome. It's been a long time since I've heard of these guys. Even I had to look them up."

Booth sighed, pressing his lips into a thin line. He really wasn't in the mood for this. "And _what_ are they?" he repeated, finally risking a closer look into the container and answering the question for himself. "Snails. A bunch of smelly dead snails in slime. This helps me how?"

It rather annoyed Booth that Hodgins was looking at him like _he_ was the crazy one, all while excitedly waving around a box of snail carcasses. "Not just any dead snails, Booth! These little guys are a long way from home. There's no _way_ they should be here. One thing I'm pretty certain of is that they've been dead longer than the victim, judging by other insect activity. It's like somebody just sprinkled their little corpses all over the body. It _has_ to mean something."

Booth was actually listening, finally, slowly nodding his head. "So you're saying the killer put them here on purpose. Some kind of message." He nodded his approval…anything to get the bug-man to figure this out fast so he could get out of there. "Good. Think you can figure out the message, lead us to him?"

Hodgins was waving that container in his face again. "King of the Playground!"

Booth ignored that completely, his notepad ready. Angela was rolling her eyes with enough disgust for both of them anyway. "So if they're not found around here, where do they come from?"

Hodgins was already removing his gloves and turning to the Jeffersonian's mobile computer station Angela had set up, fingers flying across the keyboard. "They're endemic to…ahh, somewhere Mediterranean. Greece, maybe? I was a grad student last time I even heard of these guys… give me a minute."

Booth turned his attention back to the others. "Cam? Anything on the victim?"

Daisy jumped in far too chirpily before Cam could get a word in edgewise. "Well, Agent Booth, _I_ noticed in _my_ examination...and may I just say that Dr. Brennan would be _so_ proud…"

His already strained temper finally got the better of him, especially at the mention of Bones, whom he _really_ didn't want to talk about at the moment. He cut the intern off none too kindly, one hand rubbing at his forehead with his eyes shut. "You know what, Daisy? Is your name Cam?"

Her mouth snapped shut like a rubber band snapping back into place. Disgusted hurt filled her features before she returned her eyes to her work. "Jeez, sorry," she muttered and then scoffed, not really sounding much like she meant that apology.

Booth wasn't feeling great about himself at the moment, but he'd at least done a bang-up job of getting Cam's undivided attention. Her wide eyes were fixed right on him, hands frozen hovering above the corpse that she was now ignoring. "Are you all right, Seeley?"

The conspicuous absence of the camera clicking told him that Angela was staring him down too. It only further stoked the flame of aggravation.

"You know, I'd be a lot better if somebody actually gave me something useful here! So I repeat: Camille, anything on the victim?"

Cam's jaw muscle ticked, but she didn't light into him like he might have expected. She did, however, continue to stare him down unblinkingly. "Female. Mid 30's. Medium build. No clue yet on race or cause of death, thanks to extensive damage. And then there's this..."

She held up an evidence bag, containing some filthy, torn, gore-coated fabric he couldn't immediately identify. "Her face had been covered by this. A lot of the cloth is shredded and missing, like she was wearing it over her head when she was dragged across rough ground. Dragging would certainly explain the facial damage. I'm thinking this used to be a pillowcase, but we won't know for sure until we get everything back to the lab. And now _I_ repeat: are you all right, Seeley?"

His bluster deflated like a popped balloon. The last thing he needed was Cam on the trail. Sure, a whole _lot_ of his and Bones' personal business had been gossip fodder at the Jeffersonian for months after her abduction. But this? This was _not_ going to be.

"Yeah, listen...I'm sorry. Daisy, sorry. It's just been a long morning already. Okay?"

Cam nodded her head sympathetically, a knowing look on her face that told him she probably had a pretty good idea his troubles were Brennan-related. She gave him an out, though, gesturing at the corpse in front of her. "Yeah, tell me about it."

It was Angela, of course, who didn't want to let it go. "Aww, trouble in paradise?" she asked delightedly. "Let me guess…you guys finally climbed out of bed long enough to have that first big fight? Don't worry, G-Man. Making up is the _fun_ part."

He might have lost his temper again, all things considered, had Hodgins not turned from the computer station with an excited look on his face which quickly turned a little sheepish as the implication of his findings hit him.

"Found it! Oh…oh, man. That sucks."

"What?"

Hodgins' face was apologetic as he stared at Booth. "Albania. These snails are only found in certain regions of Albania."

… ooo … ooo …

Albania.

The very word was like getting socked in the gut.

Booth's eyes immediately started scanning the crowd again. It was probably nothing. Coincidence, right? His eyes returned to the evidence bag resting by Cam's knee - a pillowcase, she'd guessed - and an uneasy feeling started growing in his gut.

"Where's Bones? Anybody know which way she went?"

"Booth…"

"What?" he snapped at Cam, but softened his tone when he saw just how wide her eyes were. "What? What is it?"

"She's not here, remember? You texted me at 5:00 this morning, saying she had the flu. That's why I called Daisy in. I haven't spoken with Dr. Brennan today."

" _What?"_

"So I take it you didn't send me a text." Cam said it as a flat statement, just putting two and two together. "It came from your number, Booth." Her tone was low, worried.

"Oh my God." Angela's hands went to her stomach, like she'd been punched. "Somebody please tell me what's going on here?"

"She _did_ get called in," Booth insisted to Cam, not sure whether it was himself or everybody else he was trying to keep calm. He was all too aware of every eye now glued to his face, waiting for him to magically have the answer. "Body in the park. She got the call even before I did. She left about 15 minutes before me, so she's _here_ somewhere."

Cam stood to her feet, pulling her gloves off as she did so. "No. She's not. You'd better try calling her."

"Camille?"

She was at his side in two steps, speaking in a hushed voice. "I was on the road when I got the call about the body, five minutes away. I've been here for hours - called my team in from here. Other than park security who found the body, I was first on scene, first vehicle in the lot. All of our staff has to check in with me and she knows that. She's not here, Seeley. That much I know for sure."

The fact that Cam looked a little panicky, before he'd even processed enough to _get_ panicky, made his stomach flip over. His phone was in his hand in an instant, hitting the first number on his speed dial.

"Come on, Bones. Come on. Dammit, baby, _answer."_ He got her voicemail. "Bones, it's me! Call me, as soon as you get this...I mean it. It's important."

He hung up and tried her office and then both their apartments, leaving some version of the same message in slightly more worried tones each time. This wasn't like her….at least, not anymore. Bones _knew_ , because it'd come spilling across his lips one night in his bed a few months ago when he frantically reached for the comfort of her body after a particularly rough nightmare, just how nervous it made him not to be able to get her on the phone.

Calling her cell over and over that first night she'd gone missing in Albania, only to endlessly get her voicemail, had left its mark on him. And God bless her, ever since she'd found that out, he knew for a fact that she made every effort to either answer or return his calls at the very first possible moment just to reassure him. She had become meticulous about it in light of all they'd gone through together, though he knew full well that if it wasn't for those circumstances he'd have spent his entire lifetime occasionally having to track her down because she got engrossed in something squinty and didn't bother to check her messages.

The fact that she was so careful about it for _him_ was one of the many actions that fully reinforced to him just how very much she actually loved him in return.

And the fact that she wasn't doing so at the moment terrified him. He'd no more than viciously stabbed the button to end the final call than he heard Cam's voice again.

"Tell me what you need, Seeley."

What he'd needed was to never have this feeling again as long as he lived. It took him a second to push down the sickening wash of deja vu that flooded him and force himself to fall back on his training. "Okay. Okay. All of you, top priority is finding out everything you can about this body and _anything_ you can tell me about who killed her. Any detail, no matter how small or insignificant, I'm first to know about it. Got it? But Cam, if you could spare Angela to see if she can hack anything out of Bones' phone, find out who the hell called her? Mine and yours too, for that matter, find out how I sent you a text I don't know anything about."

Cam nodded once, sharply. "Done. Where will you be?"'

He was already backing away, eyes locked on the mutilated corpse on the ground. "I'm going to backtrack the route in, see if I can track Bones down. If I can't do that in about 10 minutes, I'm putting out an APB on her car and having the tech guys pinpoint her phone for me."

His footsteps had stopped, unable to tear himself away from the crime scene. Female, mid 30s. Pillowcase. Albanian snails. Gut-wrenching coincidence? Or could there be somebody from their ordeal he'd failed to eliminate? Somebody who was coming after them? After _her?_ This couldn't possibly be coming back on them now, could it? He couldn't put voice to that tiny finger of suspicion just yet.

It was Hodgins who softly broke in, finally tearing Booth's gaze away from the sickening sight. "It's not her, you know."

"What? I know that." His answer was a little too fast.

Hodgins gave him a tiny smile. "Insect activity. I'll spare you the details, but this victim's been gone for at least 24 hours, Booth. No possible way it could be her."

He swallowed the lump in his throat. "Yeah, I know. So let's just do everything in our power to find this guy and make sure it never will be, yeah?"

Four pairs of sympathetic eyes were burning into his back as he turned and picked up the pace getting back to his vehicle to start looking for his partner, hoping against hope that there was some kind of horrible miscommunication and he was worrying for nothing.

... ooo ... ooo

He had no more than shut the door behind himself and inserted the key in the ignition, when a voice behind him had his hand briefly reaching for his gun. Until he recognized that voice.

"Don't make a scene...it's just the cavalry. Drive, we need to talk."

... ooo ... ooo

Booth's hand automatically returned to the key to crank the SUV, but his eyes were glued on the rearview mirror. He couldn't see anything, but he knew who was back there.

"Naji? What the hell..."

"You gone deaf, Seel? I said drive already. A few too many government types around here for a shy guy like me."

Booth's body obeyed while his mind was still racing. No sooner than he'd peeled out of the parking lot onto the street than Naji Basara appeared, somewhat gracelessly climbing over and falling across the center console to flop in the front passenger seat as Booth ripped around a corner. He winced, in what Booth just chalked up to Naji's typical melodrama, before gasping out, "Jeez, I said _drive,_ not haul ass. You trying to _get_ me killed, or just do it yourself?"

"What are you doing here? How'd you sneak in here?"

His old friend, whose honor and life he'd defended against racially-charged false accusations during their military days, and who had returned the favor by helping him invade the trafficking operation in Albania to save Bones, rolled his eyes dramatically skyward. "You forget what I do for a living? Don't answer that, I'm still not hiring you. There's something you need to know."

Booth's head turned toward Naji sharply. "Is this about Bones?"

Naji nodded, his expression now serious, lips drawn into a thin line. He might have looked a little pale, utterly exhausted maybe, but Booth didn't give it much thought. "Yeah, I hope not but it could be. Either her or you."

Booth didn't even flinch this time. Mission mode had taken over. "I knew it. That body back there...I already know there's an Albanian connection and that I was meant to find it. My people found what was probably a pillowcase over the victim's head, too. I don't even want to think it, but..."

Naji snorted. "Yeah. On the up side, you're about to have the fastest solved case in FBI history. I can tell you right now who did it, but _damn_ you're not gonna like it."

"I'm gathering that," Booth gritted out through his teeth, trying to figure out who the hell he'd left alive over there that could possibly be holding a vendetta. To his knowledge, everybody that fit that description was dead, most of them at his own hands.

His friend had to draw a deep breath before he could bring himself to say it. He held up a thick manila file folder in his hands by way of peace offering as he finally took the plunge.

"Edon Tolka's alive, Seeley. He's here in D.C., and what's worse...I'm pretty sure he's got some high-dollar, high-tech help."

... ooo ... ooo

That hadn't been where he'd expected Naji to go, and Booth ended up giving him another reason to gripe about his driving. They just about ended up in the ditch.

"That...that's not possible," he finally managed.

"Why not? I'm pretty sure _you_ didn't kill him." Although Booth might have convinced himself he'd imagined it in Albania, the disapproving tone in Naji's voice at this point left no doubt: he definitely thought Booth should have personally killed Edon, rather than hand-delivering him to the bookies he was fatally indebted too. And Naji had thought so from the beginning.

Booth shook his head furiously. "He was in deep, Noj. I gave him back to the bookies that wanted him. I know a little about how that works, the hard way, and Edon's at least six feet under. _No_. If anybody's come here looking for revenge, it's one of those bastards from that trafficking operation. Somebody we missed, somebody high up. Somebody that caught us on one of those damn cameras."

The file folder was being extended in Booth's direction again. "I get it. I really do. But you might want to have a look at this, Seel."

The soothing tone scared him just about as bad as it pissed him off. Naji was definitely not known for being either alarmist _or_ tactful; if he was concerned enough to show up like this, and then get all sensitive, it meant they could be in for some serious trouble.

He spared a glance toward the folder, eyes immediately going back to scanning every detail of his surroundings as he slowly retraced Bones' most likely route. "Why don't you just fill me in? She was supposed to be on her way here, and I'm backtracking. What made you go looking into Edon to start with?"

Naji cleared his throat, a little nervously. "You did, getting all squirrely about it back in Albania. I had a feeling you hadn't quite done him in, like you wanted me to think you had."

Booth took his eyes off the road for a second to glare at him, and Naji held up a conciliatory hand.

"What? I've known you more than five minutes, all right? I didn't say it was a _bad_ thing. I just had Irene put his name in our database when I got back, to keep a check on things. I hold onto more intel than God himself anyway, so it's not like it was a big deal or anything. Y'know, it wouldn't kill you to just say 'thank you' or something."

Booth's jaw was ticking dangerously. "You think I didn't check into him too? You think I never considered this? I checked that bastard's name every day for six months. I know he never turned back up for work; and that NATO guy he worked for, Kreshnik Benjamin, eventually filed a missing persons report on him a week after we left. Nothing ever turned up, just like I knew it wouldn't. All of his loans defaulted, his house got foreclosed, and he just vanished into thin air. His archaeological find was eventually discredited, the one thing he actually seemed to care about, and even _that_ went completely unappealed because he's _dead and gone_."

Not really having the time for a not-so-healthy case of denial, Naji exercised his primary talent of being even more painfully blunt than Bones could be on a really bad day.

"Yeah, except for the part where he turned up a month ago with a shitload of nicely forged medical records claiming he'd been the victim of a hit and run accident, and had been in a coma in some hospital in Greece for nine months. Since we weren't exactly the proper authorities, and since we didn't exactly bother to fill the NATO guy in on what his star archaeologist had been up to on his off-days, Kreshnik Benjamin had no reason not to give the little prick his job back when he pulled a Lazarus and rose from the dead. And now he's here. Bastard's passport pinged on Irene's system three days ago, entering the country through the airport here in D.C."

Three days. The look Booth shot him would have scared the hell out of most people. Even Naji looked contrite as he continued.

"Yeah, Seel, I know exactly how long three days can be, all right? I'm sorry. I've been deep-under on what should've been a 24-hour mission for the last two months. Things got a little dicey, and I couldn't get out and get in touch with Irene until this morning for her to even tell me Edon had surfaced. I never told her this guy had something to do with you, or she'd have probably just contacted you herself."

Booth just continued glaring at the road ahead of him, no longer even looking Naji's direction.

Naji started fidgeting a little before he continued. "Well, I mean, _maybe_ she would have. She gets a little frantic when I go all M.I.A. anyway. And then there's the other thing we've got going...now there's a story..."

"You couldn't pick up a phone instead of wasting time flying halfway around the world?" Booth cut him off. "Oh, I forgot, you don't take my calls these days."

Naji shot him a sidelong glance, cleared his throat again, and started over. "Yeah. Epically long story short: No, I couldn't trust your phone to call you, and I got here as fast as I could. We'll get to the phone thing...later. What I can tell you now is that Tolka's traveling with diplomatic status, and was traveling with some heeby-jeeby old skeletons he accompanied here that are bound for some museum. That was his ticket into town, which is just creepy all by itself, if you ask me. I mean, I _really_ hate sociopaths, you know?"

Booth breathed deeply through his nose, trying to focus on staying calm. It might be Bones' only chance. His voice was deadly quiet, still refusing to believe the worst. "When I last saw him, he was bound and gagged, and a bunch of armed thugs were dragging him back into their warehouse. You're telling me he talked his way out of that, Naji? How?"

Naji gave him a disdainful look that if he didn't know better, he might have thought he'd learned from Bones herself. "Sociopath? Hello? In my line of work I'm practically the leading expert." His brow furrowed. "Which may be the most depressing statement I've ever made in my life, but hey, what the hell."

Booth wasn't in the mood for Sweets-style mumbo jumbo. "So he's a sociopath. So what?"

"So most of the ones I've run across could talk their way out of the 9th circle of hell if you don't see 'em coming. And don't forget something about those guys you gave him back to for the killing: they speak two languages, money and more money. If he somehow convinced them he's worth more to them alive than dead, then…well, you do the math. It would certainly explain his sudden technical know-how; you should see some of the technology the mob-types over there are coming up with to mess with people's phones, computers, what-have-you. We're talking _sick_ stuff. Hasn't even got over here yet, but somebody doesn't stop it those guys'll take over the damn world. I knew it when I saw those medical records; they're damn good forgeries, and believe me, I'd know. Some big-wig somewhere with Europe's best tech guys on his payroll is backing this guy, and that's even scarier."

The reference to Naji having had a look at Tolka's fake medical records didn't escape Booth's notice. "You've seen them? The papers he showed up with?"

Naji thumped the file in his hand. "Right here, and a lot more too. You got someplace you can park? I don't think you're going to find what you're looking for just driving around."

... ooo ... ooo ...

By the time they'd parked in Booth's apartment parking lot and Naji had finished laying out the entire wealth of data he had printed off while en route on his private plane, Booth felt even more sick than he had previously.

Money. That was one thing that Tolka certainly wasn't finding in short supply anymore. Despite Booth's initial trepidation that Tolka must have returned to his earlier moneymaking scheme of abducting young women to sell to the trafficking operations - a possibility that gutted him, because he'd have taken the blame for each of those girls' losses squarely onto his own shoulders for not just killing the bastard when he had the chance - Naji was quick to dispel that fear.

After all, he opined to Booth, Tolka wouldn't much care what occupation he had to ply in order to stay alive and roll in plenty of money, so long as he got to do it; selling women had simply been a means to the end he wanted, not a favored career choice. And there was plenty of money in plenty of other types of criminal endeavors.

Naji's theory was that the bookies' bosses had probably seen Tolka's NATO connections (and resulting ease crossing customs) as an invaluable opportunity to put him to use running drugs for them to pay back his debt; so they had offered their financial backing and technological know-how to help him forge medical records and regain his job once he'd physically recovered from what Booth did to him. He also suspected that if that were the case, Edon had probably brought more into the D.C. area with him than some ancient remains slated for study and display in a local museum; somewhere close by there was likely a small fortune in drugs.

But drugs probably weren't his only reason for being in the area. It was just a little too convenient that Tolka's first international run for his would-be-murderers-turned-benefactors had brought him not only to the U.S., but straight to Booth and Brennan's home town. Naji didn't even believe in small coincidences, and this was a big one.

The pillowcase and distinctly Albanian snails left on a body that was sure to bring in Booth and Brennan said enough about Tolka's true intentions. At the very least, he was messing with them.

And then there was the matter of the mysterious phone call Booth told him about, the one that Brennan had received that morning. It was inherently obvious that Booth desperately wished he had paid more attention to that call.

Which brought Naji to his next problem.

On his long flight over, he'd had one of his tech guys go digging into whatever he could pull remotely from Brennan's phone, and Booth's too. What that remote survey had found was chilling, and he'd saved that info until the end for a few reasons - not the least of which was the fact that he dreaded seeing the look on his friend's face when he told him.

It was far more than a few forged medical records that had led him to believe Edon Tolka had some pretty heavy technological backing.

The virus that had been uploaded into Dr. Brennan's phone through the text she had received that morning was like nothing he'd ever seen before anywhere, and it was enough to make his blood run cold with the implications. First, she'd received a call which had been routed through an FBI extension to look legit; the following text that had ostensibly given her directions to the crime scene had instead utterly hijacked her phone. All incoming and outgoing calls after that point were jammed, along with texts and anything other than what the perpetrator wanted her to see and transmit. It would continue to shut down more systems as the virus replicated.

Even more scary than that, the exact coordinates she had been sent were blocked out and encrypted more securely than even any system Naji's team could hack through. He had his best guys working on it, but he couldn't begin to say where she had been sent when she left home that morning.

And Booth was _really_ not going to like that.

… ooo … ooo …

Booth took in everything he had heard for approximately two seconds, before bursting out of his car and heading across the parking lot toward his apartment building. Naji hopped out too, then sucked in a sharp breath and reached out to grab the side of the truck for support. Through a pained haze, he watched Booth striding quickly for his apartment, probably planning either to check that his partner hadn't come home or to simply arm and prepare himself with God-knew-what-kind of non-FBI-sanctioned crap that would get him fired. He still wasn't giving him a job, Naji thought dimly.

It was a few more steps before Booth finally turned around and really _saw_ him.

Not a moment too soon, either. Naji was doubled over, leaning up against the passenger side of the truck where he'd just exited, and clutching at his ribs as a fast-moving blood stain spread through his shirt.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: Within a chapter or two, this is going to go decidedly "M" and be moved to the M section. Just a heads-up so you can find it if you're looking for it.**

Chapter 3

Booth had been a sniper after all, and a sniper was his first thought as he all but dove back to Naji's side, pulling him downward behind the still open passenger door for cover. Some habits die hard.

The sudden impact and movement jerked a pained groan from Naji as he tried to gingerly finish lowering himself to a sitting position on the ground, but at least the bone-jarring impact had cleared his head. "Jeez…oh _shit_ ," he gasped as he turned incredulous eyes toward Booth. "The fuck was that for?"

"Naji?" Booth's voice was a little panicky as he finished lowering Naji to his back, finally realizing there was nobody shooting at them. "Talk to me, Noj…what happened?"

Groaning again, Naji pulled the bottom of his shirt up so Booth could see what Naji was already all too painfully aware was there….taped ribs, surrounded by and in some cases covering an astounding number of burns, gashes and puncture wounds, all in different stages of healing between two days and two months old. And one of those wounds was wide open and pouring blood.

"Ripped my stitches. Stimulant's wearing off too. Remember when I said things…ah, _damn_ , that hurts…got a little dicey? Yeah, well…" His breathing was getting a little labored.

Booth had already grabbed a towel out of the SUV and was applying pressure to the crudely stitched wound that had slipped a stitch when Naji had first climbed across into the front seat; it had then ripped completely when he twisted the wrong way trying to exit the vehicle and catch up with Booth. It was bleeding like a sonofabitch.

"You've been tortured," Booth cut to the chase seriously. "For a long damn time. Naji, what the hell are you doing here? You got on a plane like this?"

Naji tried to push out a laugh, that turned into a pained gasp. His breath came in harsh bursts sporadically interrupting his words as he kept talking. "My plane. But yeah. Flew straight here from hell when….I made it out and Irene told me Edon popped up. Adrenaline's a…wonderful thing. Drugs and stimulants too. 'Til they wear off. _Fuck_. My wife's gonna… kill the both of us for this." Another laugh tried to break free, doubling the torture. "You think _I'm_ tough…"

Booth looked shocked, at the same time that he pulled out his phone with his free hand to dial 911. There was no way he could do more than ebb the blood flow. Naji was going to need real medical attention. "Wife?"

Naji briefly held up the hand that wasn't clutching his ribs, showing off the utterly ostentatious diamond-encrusted band he now sported on his third finger, before that arm fell across his eyes to cover the agonizing pain he couldn't quite get a grip on.

Booth quickly gave his badge number and directions to the operator, before hanging up to focus on his friend. "Ambulance is on the way, Noj, and you're gonna need it. Hold still. You got some fake ID on you…something to keep you safe? Or anything real I need to get rid of?"

Naji shook his head. "It's all good. Back pocket. Name's Teddy Parker... when I come 'round here. It'll hold. Knew this'd happen."

A ghost of a smile crossed both their faces as Booth tried to keep him talking. "So a wife, huh? When'd that happen?"

Naji's breathing was evening out a little as the initial burst of pain faded. "Irene. I walked off the plane…ten months ago…and proposed. Married her a week later."

Booth managed to smile, even though a wistful envy crushed him. He wanted the same thing with Bones so badly he could almost taste it. "A whole week? What took so long?"

"Took that long to convince her…I was serious. Thought you'd have done…the same by now."

Booth ignored the twinge he felt at the last part of that statement as he watched Naji's eyes start to roll back in his head. He needed to keep him talking. "So how'd you finally convince her? Hey! Naji! Wake up and talk to me, dammit, before I kick your ass. How'd you convince her?"

Booth took it as a good sign that an irreverent smirk lifted the corner of Naji's mouth. "Can't answer that. That would be… oh _God,_ this hurts… telling." A coughing spell nearly doubled him up again. "Irene really hates telling."

"I'm happy for you, Noj."

"Be happier. I mention the… mini Naji coming?"

Booth's smile that time was more genuine, both at the news and wondering if the world was ready for something like that. "Yeah? And holy shit. How soon?"

"Not sure. How long's labor…usually take?"

The sound of approaching sirens filled in the silence as Booth's mouth fell open and failed to come up with anything to say to that.

"She's in labor? Right now?" he finally managed.

Naji had taken a few slightly deeper breaths in the meantime, forcing himself to calm. He looked a little perplexed, like he'd taken that personally. "Well it took a few weeks to…get her pregnant. Not as good a shot as… I thought I was, I guess. Hey…ow, _damn_ can you not break any more ribs there, Seel?"

"Sorry, Noj. You're still bleeding. She's in labor?" Booth repeated, just as incredulously as the first time, as he tried to hold pressure without anymore slips.

"Why do y'think I…finally sucked it up and escaped? Had to be soon. Couldn't miss that."

Booth couldn't quite wrap his head around how far his friend was going to help him. Yet again. "You _are_ missing it, you idiot. You're right, she's gonna kill you."

Naji shook his head, moving his arm so he could meet Booth's eyes as he got his breathing under control so he could talk more freely. There was something he'd been wanting to say to him for months. And since he planned on getting a five-minute patch job, pulling another Houdini from the hospital, sticking around just long enough to make sure Booth wasn't getting his ass handed to him by the Albanian mob, and then pumping himself full of enough stimulant to fly home and meet the mini-Naji who was sure to either save or completely destroy the whole world one day, he was going to get it out right then.

"No she's not. She's the one told me to come straight here...when I called in and she heard who Edon was after. Granted, she didn't know about… _oh fuck_ …all this blood. But she knows about you. What you did for me back then. Gave me an earful for not talking to you, too…when you tried to call me back…right after Albania. Don't worry. I didn't tell her why. But you know, right?"

Booth nodded his head, his throat working. He had at least a fighting chance of getting out in front of Tolka this time, and Naji had sacrificed a hell of a lot to give that chance to him. So he could forgo the stoic guy-stuff for a minute and just say what he meant.

"Yeah, Noj. I figured it out a long time ago. You were saving me from myself…again. I'd have run away from her for sure if you hadn't split and forced me to stay on that plane with her. And I don't think I'd have been back. I just never got a chance to say thank you. And now I owe you again."

The ambulance pulling into the lot put an approaching end to their conversation. "Send me an invitation and we're even." At Booth's raised eyebrow, Naji explained. "Your wedding, asshole. She promised. S'posed to send me an invite."

Booth stepped back to give the paramedics room as they approached, his eyes a little sad even as he threw out a joke. "Just in time. You're starting to hallucinate."

Naji ignored the paramedics to look around them and spit out one more thing. "Yeah…you know better. Ask her already. And I'm officially retired… _ow, dammit, quit!..._ right fucking now, wife's orders. So you send me…an invitation and I can actually be there. Ask your girl for my number."

Booth actually shook his head and chuckled in fascination at that one, thinking that was Naji's typical idea of a ridiculously inappropriate parting joke. He didn't try to accompany him to the hospital…knew Naji wouldn't expect him to.

But it was still a little daunting watching Naji loaded into the back of an ambulance and being driven away, knowing that this time he wouldn't have someone he trusted implicitly to back him up if Edon had some kind of professional backing with him and it came down to a firefight.

He…and Bones…were completely on their own.

… ooo … ooo …

Later that day, a good three hours after she had first arrived in the clearing, Brennan was still alone with the body. That meant it had been at least four hours since she left Booth's apartment.

She had long since realized there was very little she could do, but she couldn't leave either. She didn't dare remove the cloth that had mysteriously been placed over the skull - a pillowcase, ironically, when she had just brought up Albania to Booth that morning - especially when she had no camera equipment with her to photograph the scene first. That was supposed to be Angela's job, which she was clearly not present to do.

And as one glance told her that the remains were undoubtedly ancient, not of any local Native American origin, and therefore most likely stolen from a museum to which they desperately needed to be returned immediately, this was clearly not a modern murder if it was a murder at all. So she had no intention of further molesting stolen remains. This was a simple, if baffling, case of theft.

So other than trying to construct a crudely fashioned tent with a fully unzipped body bag and what few supplies she had with her, in an attempt to shield ancient remains from further weather damage, she had found little to do other than sit and wait for Booth or any other personnel who were sure to arrive shortly.

Waiting, within an hour, had turned into venturing as far as her line of sight allowed while keeping the remains in view, circling in a wide radius through the thick underbrush, hoping to miraculously receive a signal on her cell phone so she could call for assistance. She didn't really believe in miracles. But Booth did, and had utterly convinced her of the existence of at least _one_ type of physics lawbreaking miracle ten months before. A recurring miracle, in fact. So she continued trying to find a hot spot for her cell phone.

And she definitely was going to require assistance. She'd drunk her bottled water from her pack within the first two hours. And thanks to her phone, she was stuck. Her maddeningly malfunctioning phone had apparently deleted the text with the coordinates that had led her to the body, and she couldn't pull up GPS. And as her eyes had been glued to her phone most of the way in, she had taken little notice of her surroundings and any landmarks. Even if she made the questionable decision of leaving the crime scene unattended and somehow managed to make her way back to her vehicle, she didn't trust her ability to find the remains again without directions.

She could wait at least another hour. Perhaps there had been an emergency…a road closure, or something of that nature, and she had simply been the most prompt and therefore the only one to make it through in time.

That was the most likely explanation. It would be irrational to read more into the situation and allow her imagination to run away with her. But that pillowcase so oddly placed over the skeleton's head had brought up a few memories she typically was more able to suppress.

So the fact that her fear was most likely irrational didn't change the fact that the gun she kept on her these days - the one Booth almost certainly knew she had started carrying after Albania but pretended he didn't, a dramatic shift in policy for him - was in her hands with the safety off. Regardless of how irrational it was.

… ooo … ooo …

Time.

That was her newest problem as she continued to wait impatiently. Had Hodgins been there (as he most certainly should have been), he'd have surely concocted some type of conspiracy theory - or perhaps a paranormal one - to explain the inexplicable behavior of her phone. It now also refused to keep time, so she had no idea how much time passed after she decided to wait for another hour.

Stubbornness kept her there far longer. She could hardly berate someone else for leaving the body unattended if she did the same, especially if she gave up only moments before someone else arrived.

It was thirst which finally drove her away from the body late in the afternoon and back into the brush, leaving her heavy equipment there with the body. And it was another hour, filled with a lot of broken-branch markers and far too much backtracking, before she finally made it back to her original starting point near her vehicle.

Her feet pulled up short, however, and she blinked in confusion when she looked into the empty parking lot she knew she had started from.

Her car was no longer there. As that poorly maintained lot serviced one of the more remote trails in the park, neither was anyone else's.

A rather Booth-like curse fell from her lips as she once again looked at the screen on her phone to see that nothing had changed despite her return to an area slightly closer to civilization: she still had no cell reception.

Even more pressing, she had no water and had begun feeling the first symptoms of dehydration quite a while before. She needed to find her way out of this park.

… ooo … ooo …

After Naji was driven away, Booth first checked his apartment and messages for any sign that Bones had returned, leaving her a note to call him immediately if she came in. His next stop was the Jeffersonian.

He'd already put out that APB on Bones' car, but had refrained from contacting the FBI's tech department about her phone: he already knew what they'd find, and that it would be no more than what Naji had been able to uncover. At present, he didn't need to be sitting around answering a bunch of questions he didn't have answers for, the kind of questions a search of their phones and any mention of a forged text to Cam from him was sure to prompt. He needed to be looking for Bones.

The squint squad had nothing new that would help him either - Angela had hit the same roadblocks with the phone as Naji's guys, and Hodgins hadn't picked up anything conclusive when he put the snail goop through the mass spec.

But they had at least identified the victim.

Nellie Simmons, 35, had disappeared a little over 48 hours ago…the day after Tolka had arrived in D.C., Booth realized, but kept that to himself. Family had volunteered that her normal routine included a morning run in much-further-north Northwell Park, although she lived alone and no one could vouch for her having kept to that schedule on the morning she disappeared.

The victim's connection to a second park, however, aside from South Amville Park where she was found, was a tidbit Booth carefully filed away for further consideration. Bones had never said which park she was going to: he had assumed it to be the same one _he_ was going to, but that didn't necessarily track now that their victim had a connection to two different parks.

He didn't get much time to think about it.

What caused him to nearly lose the meager breakfast he'd finally eaten on the way to the crime scene that morning, especially after Cam was finished reciting all the grisly details of the woman's death, was the picture on the woman's photo ID that Angela brought up on the Angelatron.

Long auburn hair, blue eyes, and in general a pretty striking resemblance to Bones.

The room had gone silent, every eye fixing on Booth in mesmerized sympathy.

Any hope he'd held out that this had nothing to do with Bones - that this was all just coincidences stacked on top of coincidences - had just fled him. He'd landed right back in the middle of his worst nightmare, and it was his own damn fault Tolka was still sucking air in the first place.

Bones' friends' sympathetic eyes felt like daggers of accusation, like they were all wondering the same thing he was: how the hell had he failed to protect her yet again? Pure rage, mostly at Tolka but more than a little misdirected toward the closest available targets, flooded him.

And he wasn't the only one feeling that helpless rage. The thought of Brennan being in danger again had already put everybody else's nerves on edge too.

So truth be told, none of them handled it particularly well when Booth chose that moment to flatly inform the room that Tolka was alive, in D.C. for the past 3 days, and almost certainly involved in whatever was going on; and then turned on his heel to leave the room without another word.

Hodgins, Angela, Cam, Daisy, and Sweets - who had dropped everything to come offer any assistance he could when Daisy called to tell him something strange was going on and it might be related to Albania - all reacted at the same time after the briefest moment of stunned silence. Cam, who was between Booth and the door, quickly sidestepped to block the door with a hand against his chest before the shocked outburst had even died down.

"You're just telling us this now?" she asked him incredulously. "And then what? Where exactly do you think you're going?"

"Yeah, and what else are you not telling us?" Hodgins.

"You told her you killed him!" Accusation just dripped from Angela's angry words. "You _lied_ to her?"

No, actually he hadn't, on either account; but apparently Angela hadn't heard the end of the story since he had come clean to Bones about his final solution with Tolka. Normally he'd be delighted that Bones apparently kept some things private between the two of them these days, but at the moment he just didn't care enough what Angela knew or what conclusion she formed from it to bother correcting her.

Tension rippled off him in waves, as he addressed the only reaction he cared about: the one preventing him from leaving. "Get out of my way, Camille, before I move you."

She never even flinched. "Just as soon as you tell me everything you know, Seeley, so I can help you."

"Booth, everyone here cares for Dr. Brennan. I don't think you're in any condition to do this by yourself when…" Sweets never got any farther than that. Booth never gave any indication he'd heard anyone other than Camille Saroyan. He gritted his teeth and replied to her, leaning forward to go nose-to-nose as he cut Sweets off.

"I don't _know_ anything else yet, and I don't have time to stand here and argue with you. I told you everything you need to know, so just do your damn job. Help me find this bastard so I can take him apart piece by goddamn piece. _Get_ _. Out. Of my way."_

He shouldered his way past her, but a furious Angela was right on his heels as he angrily strode down the hallway, the others still trailing them but keeping a little more distance.

"Why is Edon Tolka here? Answer me, Booth! What does he want?"

"Revenge, would be my guess," he spit over his shoulder, never slowing down. "You know everything, figure it out."

Angela grabbed his arm and dug her nails in without realizing it as she followed him, pulling on it to try to stop him. "Revenge. Against who? You? Or Brennan? Dammit, _Booth_!"

The realization hit him like a blow in the chest as he spun back to face her, wrenching his arm away from her grasp. "What does it matter?" he ground out. "Either way, it doesn't matter."

"How can it _not_ matter?" Angela fired back, her eyes full of frustrated tears.

He swung around suddenly, away from Angela; his fist crashing into the wall made everybody jump before he turned back around, his face furious.

"Because it's her either way! Can't you see that? If he wants revenge on _her_ , he goes after _her_ ," he pushed out through clenched teeth. "If he wants revenge on _me…_ "

"He still goes after her," Cam finished for him so he wouldn't have to say it. He nodded miserably, some of the fight draining out of him, as she continued. "That's making the assumption that he _knows_ the best way to hurt you. We all do. Does he?"

His own voice, just before he'd shoved that pillowcase on Edon's head and jammed him in the trunk to return him to the Albanian bookies he'd truly believed would kill him, rang in his ears:

 _Just know that the biggest mistake you ever made was putting your hands on the woman I love._

The memories continued to assault him.

 _This is your goddamn blood money?_ _This is what you thought the life of the woman who means_ _everything_ _to me was_ _ **worth**?_

If his words hadn't clued Edon in, the pummeling he'd taken at Booth's hands - the way Booth had marked him up injury for injury he'd done to Bones - had no doubt finished the job.

"Yeah," Booth answered Cam, voice soft again. "Yeah, I'd say he probably does."

He recovered enough to direct a gruff reminder to the squints that _every_ _thing_ got routed through him first, and they finally allowed him to leave unhindered.

... ooo ... ooo ...

A very short time later, he descended on the Hoover Building and burst into Cullen's office with absolutely no regard for insubordination.

A missing FBI asset, possible kidnapping from one national park, and likely the same victim found in another one: convincing Cullen they had jurisdiction had been the easy part.

But it'd taken a magnitude of self-control he couldn't have honestly known he possessed in order to convince Cullen he was clearheaded and unemotional enough to lead the task force assigned both with catching the murderer and safely recovering Temperance Brennan. He _knew_ Tolka, he had successfully argued, and that experience could only assist in the investigation. The time it would take to fill in another agent enough to take the lead could result in more lives lost.

With Cullen's threats ringing in his ears that if he so much as broke a sweat on his upper lip he'd be yanked from the case so fast his head would spin, Booth found himself quickly addressing a roomful of agents who gave him their full attention as he delegated responsibility and made it clear that this was one case where everybody had better get it right: mistakes were simply not an option.

… ooo … ooo …

The agents working under Seeley Booth gave it everything they had. Despite his stoic façade and the stone-faced presence of a watchful Cullen, it was hardly a well-kept secret that Booth and his partner were a whole lot more than that. It was impossible not to admire the way he kept it together to ensure his best chances at saving her.

He'd been thorough in his instructions.

Bones had been on her way to a park. That was the one thing he knew for sure.

So he had every parking lot of every park in the greater D.C. area, large or small, searched for her car.

When that failed to yield any results - something that scared the everloving hell out of him, but he hid it well - he ordered search teams to expand the search and start combing those parks, starting with and concentrating on Northwell and South Amville: the two parks where their female murder victim had originally disappeared and where her body had been found, respectively.

He'd ended up helping on the ground, searching the area in a 1-mile radius of South Amville, the park he still assumed Bones had been on her way to that morning, just like him. He'd called her name, along with other searchers, until his throat hurt. The entire area had been frustratingly silent. It was late afternoon by the time he reluctantly made his way back to headquarters.

He had managed to dig up one piece of interesting information so far. As far as Kreshnik Benjamin at NATO was aware, there were only two ancient skeletons being accompanied by Edon Tolka into the states. On his paperwork at the airport, however, to have the remains transported, Tolka had claimed _three_ sets of remains. Other than being baffling, it didn't really tell Booth anything other than that a known sociopath had lied. More than likely he'd either smuggled another valuable skeleton out to use for his own monetary purposes, or that container was full of drugs to back up Naji's drug-running theory. Or both. Unless it pertained to finding Bones, Booth wasn't fully interested at the moment.

He'd finally ended up calling in the tech guys after all, to try to remotely hack into her phone. But although they uncovered the same virus of unknown origins that Naji's team had found, the virus had destroyed critical systems on her phone one by one. The encryption was still impossible to break. And that made it impossible to pinpoint her phone. It had become a useless hull, just as Naji had insinuated would happen.

The manhunt for Edon Tolka - whom Booth was becoming more horrifyingly convinced by the moment might have Bones with _him_ \- was something on an entirely different scale. If there was a single favor, friend, acquaintance or threat he hadn't called in to maximize the search potential - from military to former military buddies turned CIA - he didn't know what it was. He'd exhausted every option open to him, through both official and unofficial channels.

The low point of his day, by far, was when the team combing Northwell Park had called in to report their discovery of a new crime scene, complete with crime scene tape, in a clearing so far off the beaten path that they had almost missed it even in broad daylight.

It hadn't done great things for him to hear about the discovery of yet another body with a fucking pillowcase over its head at that crime scene. The fact that Bones' equipment had been discovered there too, with no sign of _her,_ was nearly his undoing. He hadn't waited around to hear more details before he'd been on his way there.

Camille Saroyan would never forget the sound of his voice when he called from the road to beg her to meet him there _now-rightfuckingnow_ and bring Daisy with her to tell him who the hell was lying out there in that clearing: an age, gender, race, anything.

Cam did know she'd been holding her breath when she and Daisy finally made their way into that little clearing an hour later, afraid of the look she'd find on his face. She'd caught that breath in relief when they saw the body was fully skeletonized, despite the fact that Edon Tolka would surely know full well how to quickly deflesh a body. And then she'd found herself holding her breath again, along with Booth's sweaty and tense hand in hers, when a much more serious than usual Daisy Wick finished quickly photographing the scene and then removed the pillowcase. She immediately proclaimed that the bones were ancient, male, and not in any way possible that they could be Dr. Brennan. The relief that had gone through Cam was profound, nearly buckling her knees as she squeezed Booth's hand a little tighter.

That'd been nothing next to the relief Booth had felt. He'd pulled his hand away, both of his going to cover his face as he slumped forward and breathed deeply for the first time in what had to be an hour and got himself back under control. He'd had a team poring through every piece of Brennan's equipment she'd left there for _any_ clue. But he turned at that point and started going back through all of it himself, looking for a couple things in particular. He'd watched her pack it enough times to know what should and shouldn't be there, even if he didn't necessarily know the proper name for each piece.

So he was the one who had then known without question, as he mentally matched up missing items from her bag with what he saw near the body, that the amazingly resourceful body-bag tent stretched over the remains must have been her doing. She'd come here alive, and had clearly stayed that way for quite some time.

That relief had been short-lived.

Two and two eventually clicked together in his head, making him realize that the third set of remains Tolka had smuggled out of Albania had just been located. It was less than settling to realize just how long and elaborately he'd been planning this, as a way of luring her out here and keeping her there. The victim in South Amville, with all the brutality done to her, had simply been a ruse to keep Booth occupied while Tolka had his way with Bones.

So Booth was already struggling for control again, with the realization of how easy it had been to separate her from his protection.

It was about that time that searchers discovered a large camoflauge backpack full of torture implements hidden in a nearby tree - a tree with a clear view of anyone approaching from the way they'd come in. It's location made his blood run cold. That was the way _she_ would have come in too. Somebody had been set up to watch her, to see her coming. Somebody who was prepared.

And he'd dealt with enough sadistic bastards to know a murder kit when he saw one.

Handcuffs, shackles, lots of rope, a blindfold, gag, a small saw, an icepick, a cattle prod, a blowtorch, surgical scalpels, syringes….item after horrifying item emerged in the gloved hands of the search team. The one consolation was the pristine state of everything inside, making it clear that the entire kit hadn't been put to use yet.

But that didn't even matter when the final two items emerged. The folded pillowcase no doubt intended to go over her head, and the unopened box of condoms - the final two items to come out of the bag - had been the final straw for Booth.

Tolka hadn't just planned to kill her. He'd planned to keep her alive a while. And exactly what he'd had in store for her was a pretty damn clear picture.

That wasn't all that was blindingly clear.

He was going to kill this man this time. He was going to make very, very fucking sure it was done right, too.

All he could hope was that the reason her ridiculous compact gun she carried - the one she didn't think he knew about - was one of the items missing from her pack was simply because she had it on her person and not for any other more frightening reason. And that she wouldn't hesitate to blast anything that got near her. If only she had any idea just how much safer he felt after Albania knowing she had one; she had finally won that argument hands down, she just didn't know it. He'd have bought her one himself if she hadn't gone behind his back, and he wasn't about to take it away from her. He'd actually cleaned and checked it for her a few times in the middle of the night when a residual nightmare hit him and he just needed to do _something_ to keep her safe so he could sleep again.

And when he found her, he was damn well going to tell her that.

He'd already ordered a doubling down on the efforts to find her car, since it seemed most likely she'd driven it to this location, only for it to later disappear under unknown circumstances. It was possible that she was in it.

But it had taken some time to get a search dog out to the clearing to track her scent, now that they had a definite starting point. During the time it'd taken the dog to get there, Cam had watched Booth try to hold it together, alternating between pacing, standing unnaturally still with his eyes squeezed shut and jaw clenched, and finally sitting on the ground checking and rechecking his weapon while he stared at his partner's equipment with an expression that hurt to watch. He refused any contact, any comfort, and she and Daisy found themselves sitting side by side on the ground across the clearing from him, silently watching him together, wearing matching worried expressions on their faces.

The dog traced Brennan's scent in a circle all around the clearing with Booth right on their heels. They tracked her even through the thickest underbrush, like she had been carrying out her own search pattern. The fact that that circle had taken her within steps of the tree containing the murder kit had left Booth shaking. What had she been focused on, that she didn't see it? Her phone, maybe? Trying desperately to call him for help?

He crashed along through the woods behind the dog and its handler, as the dog finally hit on her strongest trail leading them back out of the clearing the way he'd just come. Booth's keen eyes saw some obviously manmade markers that said somebody had circled and done some backtracking trying to leave some breadcrumbs to find their way out of the maze, and for a time they seemed to be going in circles. Finally, the dog followed her trail all the way back to a small parking lot. From there they ran down several marked trails through the park leading to a larger main area, where her scent evidently disappeared completely by the side of the road.

The implication terrified Booth yet again. She had made it this far. What could have happened to her then? The most likely explanation was that she had entered a vehicle, but without more to go on he was as utterly lost as she was.

So the adrenaline rush that shot through him knew no bounds just seconds later, when he got a call informing him that her car had just been located, pulled over in a routine traffic stop by a city cop who'd only just started his shift and had just read the APB for that vehicle.

What caused his blood to pump even harder as he sprinted back through the woods to his own vehicle, utterly ignoring the sting of the foliage he was crashing through as it scratched any exposed skin it could find, was the description of the driver:

Edon Tolka.

He was the one driving Brennan's car.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

At Booth's explicit orders, the car had already been searched by the time he arrived, to ensure there was absolutely no sign of Bones in it. That search revealed that Tolka had been transporting a large quantity of illegal drugs, confirming Naji's theory regarding exactly what benefit the Albanian henchmen had found in sparing his rotten life. But there was no sign of Bones. No blood anywhere in the vehicle either, to Booth's unending relief.

Other than searching the car, Booth's orders had been that if they valued their life, nobody would even _look_ at Edon other than to handcuff and secure him before he could get there. He was going to have first crack at him.

The time it took for Booth to arrive on scene where Edon Tolka was angrily cooling his heels in the back of a patrol car had just given him more time to work up a good head of steam – along with a healthy understanding of just how much he had riding on his ability to keep his more murderous impulses in check.

Tolka had been found in possession of Bones' _car_ , Booth sternly reminded himself, which meant he had at the very least crossed paths with her. At best, he had merely taken her and stashed her somewhere long enough to make the drug run his backers expected of him so that he could take his time on his revenge when he was done. It was a plausible theory: giving her time to sweat it out like that would have only enhanced the experience for the asshole; and one thing about sadistic sociopathic psychos was that they liked to take their time.

If Tolka _did_ have her, such a scenario was the best Booth could hope for, meaning Tolka was still his best chance to find her. The torture/murder kit he'd found, despite the fact that he didn't really need to be thinking about that with Edon in arm's reach, had not been used yet and that was reassuring.

He didn't want to talk to him in a police station or even an FBI interrogation room. It had to be on-scene. With a myriad of police and FBI milling around the arrest scene, Tolka had a far better chance there of surviving the interrogation long enough to give Booth something useful. But mostly he wanted him right there where he had been arrested, to throw him off balance with the cold hard evidence of Bones' drug-filled stolen car right there undeniably in his face. He wanted the fact cemented for Tolka that if they didn't find her alive and well he was going down not just for drug trafficking but murder as well.

Not that the bastard would be living long enough to see the inside of an American courtroom or relatively comfy jail cell if anything happened to Bones, but Tolka didn't have to know that.

It still didn't take nearly as long as it should have for Booth's control to snap and for him to have Tolka's back pinned hard against the outside of the patrol car, the prisoner's cuffed hands trapped uncomfortably between his body and the vehicle. Booth's knuckles were white as he gripped him by the shirt to keep him there. His already strained temper was quickly being pushed to the breaking point by the pushy arresting officer, who seemed a lot more concerned with the absolutely obscene amount of illegal drugs than he did about the missing woman, no matter how obsessed the overbearing FBI agent seemed with finding her.

Booth could understand why this cop didn't want the focus taken off of the huge drug bust he'd just singlehandedly secured, not wanting to give up his collar to another agency. He just didn't fucking care. He didn't exactly have time for jurisdictional pissing contests that were wasting him precious seconds, especially when they could get Bones killed.

It all got the better of him, and he snapped so fast he never saw it coming. One second he was listening to empty denials from Tolka, who still thought he had a chance in hell of talking his way out of Booth's steely grip. The next second his fingers were around Tolka's throat, thumbs gouging, doing everything in his power to squeeze the life right out of him.

He didn't know all of the details until far later, but he knew it had taken at least four of the biggest FBI agents on scene plus the arresting officer to pull him off – and that all five of them would be going home black and blue that night.

Tolka had chosen that moment, as he continued to gasp for air and Booth continued struggling to break free, to take whatever revenge left available to him, his last remaining chance to psychologically torture Booth:

"You'll never find her...not this time," he had rasped through his tortured throat.

It was enough to eradicate any doubts anyone might have still had that he was responsible for her disappearance. It was also enough for Booth to break free and get hold of him again.

… ooo … ooo …

When all was said and done, Tolka had been checked out by paramedics and quickly shuttled off to the Hoover Building with the four burly agents who all swore on their lives that his scrapes, bruises, bloody nose and severely swollen eye had all been sustained while resisting arrest…after all, look at how badly he'd banged all of _them_ up in the process. As for all those marks around his neck, who could say? He must've pissed off the wrong guy somehow that day; drugs were a nasty business. Agent Booth had been a model of professionalism under difficult conditions, their reports all noted.

When all was said and done, Booth had been sympathetically clapped on the back so many times, been on the receiving end of so many apologetically pitying handshakes, that he was ready to hit something all over again. Even the arresting officer had a tightlipped look of silent empathy once he figured out that the woman in question was far more than just an unsolved case to the FBI agent he suddenly felt a little sorry for.

And when all was said and done, Booth's phone had been shattered when the other agents had finally wrestled him to the ground the second time he'd gone after Tolka. That bothered him probably as much as anything else, because now Bones had no way to call him if she was somehow able to. Somebody was in the process of requisitioning a new one for him as quickly as possible, but he wanted that link to her back in his pocket immediately.

He was pretty damn lucky, all things considered, that Cullen even let him watch the rest of the interrogation through the one-way mirror.

Lucky, because it wasn't like Cullen had entirely bought the bullshit story regarding Tolka's injuries that he'd heard from the four well-muscled agents he'd specifically assigned to protect Booth from doing anything stupid. He'd not bought a single _word_ of it, actually, whether he had signed off on their little work of fiction or not.

It was even more surprising that Cullen was the one sitting across the interrogation table from Tolka, with Sweets by his side, trying a far different tactic than the one Booth would have favored. He had to admit they were doing a more convincing job than he'd have been capable of at the moment, as they sat there becoming Tolka's goddamn new best friends. The two of them had him convinced that he was the criminal mastermind of the universe, that his fascinating psyche held the keys to every mystery in the criminal textbook if he could just explain how he did it, and the little bastard was eating it up. Necessary, but enough to make Booth wish his gun wasn't sitting locked in Cullen's office at the moment.

Still _more_ amazing was the fact that before entering that interrogation room, Cullen had offered to wear an earpiece, with Booth's voice transmitted to him if _–_ and _only_ if – he had something of substance to add. The warning look Booth received through the glass a couple times told him that some of his more verbose strings of expletive-laced opinions questioning Tolka's parental legitimacy, worthiness to continue receiving oxygen, and proposed eternal destination were not necessarily substantive.

But then the call came in that questioning needed to stop immediately, because Tolka was soon to be picked up by a representative of his government, invoking his diplomatic immunity and taking him home.

That was when every single one of those earlier surprises paled in comparison to the utterly mindboggling fact that it was Cullen himself who immediately jerked Edon out of his chair and put him into the wall.

Booth's initial impulse had been to get into that room just as quickly as possible. If anybody was going to beat the shit out of Edon, it was going to be him. But he had not exactly been surprised to discover that Cullen had locked him securely into the observation room, probably for just such an occasion. So he had ended up instead with his nose pressed up against the glass, slightly awed eyes focused intently on the way his boss quickly, skillfully and rather painfully extracted the truth out of Tolka in a way that wasn't going to leave any more messy marks to produce further paperwork.

It also shocked the hell out of him that Sweets sat with his back turned rather calmly perusing the file in front of him throughout the duration of that particular spectacle, too. If he'd taken time to reflect on it, he'd have entertained little doubt that Sweets' willingness to turn a blind eye had far more to do with Bones than it did with Cullen being the boss. He knew as well as anyone just what a soft spot the young psychologist had for Booth's brilliantly tough and yet vulnerable partner.

… ooo … ooo …

Deep down, Tolka had _wanted_ everybody to know just exactly how smart he thought he was. So it didn't take long for the entire story to come spilling out once he was given no other choice than to start talking. In fact, he rapidly answered every question Booth had aside from the only one he actually cared about: where was Bones _now_?

Edon admitted coming to D.C. with every intention of seeking his revenge on the man who'd pummeled him and left him to die at the hands of the bookies.

Officially, he was there in his capacity as a NATO-affiliated archaeologist in the employ of Kreshnik Benjamin, to whom he had volunteered himself to accompany two sets of remains slated to be put on display in a local museum.

He'd taken it upon himself to also smuggle in a third set of ancient remains he had access to because he was the one who'd discovered them. That one had been the bait: the skeleton he'd set up for Brennan to find in that secluded clearing in Northwell Park.

He'd had help. When Booth had left him in Albania, and he'd been dragged into that warehouse, his bookies had been in the middle of a meeting with their own supervisors: the crime bosses at the top of the food chain. Those were the men ultimately in charge of not only the bookies, but also the trafficking operations he'd sold girls to before.

So he'd seen an opportunity and started making offers. His contacts and diplomatic travel status with NATO meant he had to answer almost no questions and was subjected to less than zero examination of his cargo when traveling, so he was in a position to make them a lot of money. In fact, he'd just provided them a way of expanding their operation internationally. They'd therefore agreed not only to spare his life, but after he'd had time to recover from the injuries Booth had inflicted on him, they would give him the forged records and tools to get his job back with a believable story. Not that they hadn't inflicted a few injuries of their own. Not surprising to anybody who knew him. The only utterly mindblowing thing about it was that apparently Edon thought he was deserving of sympathy for what they had done to him.

Once he had excelled at a few small jobs and was a trusted asset, that was when Tolka had started to set up his revenge. Being sent to D.C. was perfect. His bosses didn't really care what he did with his spare time in D.C. so long as he did the job they'd sent him to do and delivered their drugs to the highest paying buyer they'd found yet. But even better, he'd even managed to talk them into helping him secure his revenge.

It wasn't that they cared a bit about him. It was just that their interests had been somewhat aligned when Tolka cleverly pointed out that the man he sought revenge against was the same man who'd almost singlehandedly brought down their largest sex trafficking operation almost a year ago, the man who had continued since that time to blast his way through their various warehousing operations bringing them down one at a time, and therefore the man that represented the hugest known threat to their entire enterprise.

It was at that point that Booth got a little lost. The way Tolka was telling it, it sounded like Booth was being blamed for a whole lot more than what he and Naji had done during their short time in Albania. It almost sounded like somebody had continued taking potshots at the whole organization, focused on bringing down the entire sex trade. Was it just the self-aggrandizing ramblings of a psychopath, blowing the importance of his enemy wildly out of proportion?

Or had Naji left out a few pieces of the story about exactly what kind of "mission" he'd been on when he'd been captured and tortured? That one didn't take too much thought; if there was anything the ostentatious bastard had always loved, it was a good cause that also allowed him to blow shit up. Deciding to take it 100 steps further after saving Bones and instead trying to save every single woman in Albania on his own dime without any backup would just be classic Naji. Which meant Booth had damn well better find a way to get in contact with him again, because he and Bones might not be the only ones in trouble. Hopefully Naji had Irene and mini-Naji...mini-Naji, seriously?...stashed somewhere safe.

Wheels still turning, Booth returned his focus to Tolka's story.

In return for his promise to kill Booth – something he'd agreed to with no intention of carrying out, because killing Brennan would be so much more effective if Booth lived a long miserable life afterward – Tolka's bosses had used their technology to make that FBI-routed call and subsequent text/virus to lure Brennan to his mock crime-scene and disable her phone, as well as the text from Booth to Cam. Of course, they'd been thinking all along that Brennan was simply the bait to secure Booth rather than the primary target.

Edon had played everybody, which was why he was so gleeful about telling the story.

And it'd worked perfectly up to that point, separating Brennan from Booth.

His plan from there had been pretty much what Booth had pieced together in his own head: lure her there with the skeleton, then leave her there while he made his scheduled drug drop. Meanwhile, her partner/bodyguard and the rest of her colleagues (along with the majority of D.C. law enforcement) were busy cleaning up the rather impressive mess he'd made in South Amville Park with the other crime scene.

 _That_ victim had been the first person he'd happened to run across when he was done setting up his trap for Brennan. She'd simply been convenient, out running in the park far too close to his perfect fake crime scene when he was looking for a suitable victim for his real one anyway. The fact that she just so happened to resemble Brennan physically had been sheer coincidence, though he'd relished the additional psychological torment it would cause Booth. That resemblance might have also resulted in the excessive brutality he'd demonstrated; he'd seen it as a practice run.

When that grisly scene had been set, he'd finally been ready. He'd already taken care of the text to Dr. Brennan's employer; so he just waited until the South Amville Park body had been discovered before having the call and text put through to Brennan sending her to Northwell.

Booth's blood had run cold to hear that Tolka had been hiding near that secluded clearing, watching Brennan when she arrived, cattle prod in hand. His proximity to both her and the tools of torture he'd intended to use on her was something that was going to give Booth fresh nightmares for a while.

Tolka had planned to start on her then. But somehow it'd taken longer than he had expected for the South Amville body to be discovered – longer for Brennan to find her way to the clearing in Northwell, too.

That would have put him starting on Brennan less than an hour before the drug drop he had no choice but to perform for his coercive employers. Not nearly enough time, as far as he was concerned. Not to mention the fact that early on her guard was up, and she was holding on to a gun. So Tolka had decided not to touch her at all until afterwards, needing uninterrupted time with her to carry out the elaborate and painful execution he had planned for her. And maybe her guard would be down by then and he'd have less chance of accidentally being shot.

The reference to that gun was the first thing the bastard had said that gave Booth some hope. It cemented an earlier decision for him, too. He was making it very damn plain the next time he talked to Bones that she didn't have to hide her gun from him or anybody else anymore; the little cowardly bastard hadn't exactly said so, but Booth had read between the lines enough to figure out that that gun had likely been the reason Tolka just slipped off and left her unsecured rather than attempting to immobilize her with the restraints he'd had on him in that bag. No way his plan hadn't included leaving her there to sweat it out knowing what was going to happen to her. And he'd have had the perfect opportunity to sneak up on her and knock her out while she was constructing that tent.

But fear of that gun had changed Tolka's plans. So if Bones wanted a second one for her other hand, Seeley Booth would gladly be the one to take her shopping for it and he wouldn't have one damn word to say about it.

Cullen was asking about Brennan's car, and the huge grin on Tolka's face as he got into the next part of the story made Booth fantasize about getting his fingers around his throat again. The bastard had watched her for a while, sneaking around to the other side of the clearing where she had dropped all of her belongings at the entrance. It'd been a simple matter to swipe her car key from her key ring and return the rest of her keys, while her back was turned and her focus was fixed on erecting her makeshift tent over the body.

And so he'd left her there, unaware of his existence, fully expecting her to be there when he returned. He'd stolen her car, returned to his hotel and loaded what he needed to carry out his mandatory drug drop. The timing of that scheduled drop was inconvenient, but he was impressed with his own cleverness in working around it.

In fact, Tolka had planned to be back in that clearing torturing and murdering Brennan long before he was pulled over and arrested.

There was just one thing he hadn't counted on: D.C. traffic.

The irony was almost frightening in its simplicity. One of the things Booth hated most had quite likely saved Bones' life. _If_ Tolka was telling the truth.

Cullen believed him. Sweets believed him.

That part left Booth with a relief so profound it nearly dropped him.

But none of it explained where Bones was _now -_ why she hadn't yet surfaced - which was why Booth knew he couldn't let Tolka leave the country, diplomatic immunity notwithstanding. What if he was lying? What if he _did_ have her stashed somewhere, immobilized, with no access to food or water? What if, God forbid, the _unused_ torture kit was just a prop to throw them off, and Bones was facing a real one just as soon as they let her captor go? The thought of letting Tolka go, when he might not have told them everything, shook him from the inside out. Bones' trail had ended by the side of the road…whose car had she gotten into? Could some of Tolka's help be in-country with him?

So to put it mildly, Booth lost it when Cullen announced that they were going to have to let Tolka go. Yelled, cajoled, threatened, and made a scene the water cooler crowd wasn't likely to forget any time soon.

That wasn't even the worst of it.

Cullen had made sure Tolka was safely out of the building with the representative from his government before he ever let Booth out of the observation room and returned his gun. Booth was not to go _near_ him, and that wasn't what he wanted to hear.

What he wanted to hear even less was that he was being sent home. Escorted home, actually, by two imposing agents who were not going to leave until his door closed behind him.

That had led to a scene in Cullen's office that probably should have got him fired. He'd yelled until his voice was hoarse as he made his case that Bones was still out there and so he needed to be out there too, leading the search for her. He was fairly certain he remembered slamming his already sore fist into a wall and sweeping everything off of a table in Cullen's office onto the floor, but it just didn't matter.

Cullen had assured him that every available man he had would be out looking for her, but that as of that moment Booth was officially off the case. If he wanted the lead role back first thing in the morning, he could have it: just so long as he left quietly at that exact moment, went home to get some sleep, and came back through that door in control of himself

Cullen had him. If the search did have to continue into the next day, then it was absolutely imperative that he be the one in charge of it. So Booth had accepted his gun, gritted his teeth, and gone quietly.

He hadn't said a word as the two agents followed him straight to his door, standing outside for a few minutes after he stepped in and shut the door behind him. He went no farther in to his apartment; he stood with his head pressed against the cool door, waiting. The very moment that the two agents were satisfied he was staying put and they walked away, he had every intention of going straight back out that door.

Tolka might have told Cullen the truth, or he might not. But Booth was pretty certain _he_ could get the entirety of it from him, once and for all. What the evil bastard had planned for Bones wasn't the tip of the iceberg to what Booth had planned for him.

He was so intently focused on watching for the guards to leave, on planning every millisecond of what he was going to do to Edon Tolka when he found him, that he never heard the quiet footsteps entering the room behind him from the direction of his bedroom.

… ooo … ooo …

By the time Brennan finally made her way back to Booth's apartment, she was utterly exhausted.

After discovering that her car had been stolen, the first order of business had been finding something to drink. She'd been parched from her long hours in the sun watching over the crime scene, long before she'd spent an hour finding her way back to that empty parking lot. Eventually, after she perused the park map and discovered which trail would bring her back to the central area of the park where she could find a phone and call the police, she'd found a water fountain along one of those trails.

That taken care of, she'd next attempted to call for help from a security phone placed in the middle of the longest trail. She'd groaned in frustration to find it broken.

It had taken forever to find her way out of what was essentially a huge wilderness preserve. She had no way of knowing that mere minutes after she had finally found the main area, the searchers had discovered the crime scene she'd just vacated an hour earlier. No way of knowing that Booth was getting the call at that exact moment, fearing the absolute worst.

Park security was nowhere to be found when she finally reached the main area, and she was tired. She needed to report both her stolen car and the stolen ancient remains – not necessarily in that order – but the sight of a taxi cab dropping off a young couple at the main road was too tempting to pass up. Again, she had no way of knowing that Booth would in the very near future be following a search dog down the path she had just taken. She was just utterly focused on catching that cab.

She'd run as fast as her tired legs would carry her, flagged down the cabbie and requested to be taken to Booth's apartment. Somewhere along the way, she'd realized she had no way to pay the driver – she had her key ring, but had carried out little else from the clearing - and so had instead diverted him to stop first at her apartment so she could run inside to grab some cash.

She'd temporarily considered staying there to make her calls, but the cabbie was waiting for her so she had to go back out anyway. It was beginning to get late, and it had just occurred to her that after being unable to reach her all day thanks to her malfunctioning phone, Booth was certain to be concerned.

She was actually somewhat surprised to see that he wasn't home yet, as she had been more than eager to hear his version of events that would surely explain how no one other than her had ever arrived at the crime scene. She quickly found his note, imploring her to call him. So his cell number was the very first that she tried. It surprised her when she went straight to voicemail. Assuming that perhaps he was trying to call her at that very moment, she quickly left a message before disconnecting and waiting a few moments.

She was a little surprised again when he didn't call her back immediately. Reasoning that it might be best to hear Booth's version of events so she would be fully informed when she made her reports on the events of the day, and not wanting to miss his almost certainly impending call by starting another, she decided to wait just a few more moments before making the other calls she desperately needed to make. Once Booth _did_ start calling, he was unlikely to stop until he reached her; that would make focusing on giving an effective report to either the FBI, police or Cam problematic.

She also was in desperate need of a shower, so she took the phone into the bathroom with her to wait for Booth's call.

Again, she was surprised that the phone stayed stubbornly silent throughout her entire shower.

So the last thing she expected to find, as she emerged from the shower back into the living room ready to start making calls and filing reports, was Booth standing with his back to her and his forehead pressed against the front door.

"Booth?"

TO BE CONTINUED...

(This story will be moved to the M section with the next installment; please look for it there, as you will no longer be able to find it on the front page without applying your filter to search for M stories. It's far from over. :)


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